RTFri, 25 Dec 2020 16:00 UTC
© Reuters/Andrew NellesA vehicle burns near the site of an explosion in Nashville, Tennessee, December 25, 2020.
Police in Nashville, Tennessee believe that a massive Christmas morning explosion in the city "was an intentional act." The blast destroyed buildings and vehicles, and filled downtown Nashville with smoke and fire.
The explosion occurred at around 6:30am local time near Second Avenue, according to city police.
Police responded to a 'shots fired' call in the area and saw an RV they considered suspicious. As officers evacuated the area and a bomb squad arrived, the RV exploded, police sources told WKRN News.
Police and federal agents began an investigation immediately afterwards, with a police spokesman telling reporters that the blast "was an intentional act."
According to some witnesses, a message coming from the RV prior to the blast warned bystanders to evacuate. Police told News Channel 5 that they are investigating these reports.
Three people were transported to hospital following the explosion, but none of their injuries have been reported as critical.
However, the blast devastated a large stretch of Second Avenue, destroying the facades of buildings, smashing windows, setting vehicles on fire, and spewing thick black smoke into the air.
Firefighters have asked the public to stay at least two blocks from the blast site as a precaution in the event of further explosions. Around 30 people have reportedly been evacuated.
According to media reports, President Donald Trump has been briefed on the incident.
Comment: Additional footage of the damage:
CCTV video of the moment of the explosion have appeared:
RT
reports:
Video footage has emerged showing the exact moment an RV exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The blast was apparently preceded by a pre-recorded warning, urging bystanders to evacuate.
That is odd. It sounds similar to one of those US Govt Emergency Broadcast signals that was 'accidentally' aired numerous times in the last couple of decades.
Whoever did this then, meant to blow up the RV, but with minimal or no casualties.
The
NY Post reports:
A bomb squad was heading to the scene — just blocks from the historic Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry — when the blast took place around 6:30 a.m., knocking one cop to the ground.
There was no immediate evidence that a shooting had actually taken place, Metro Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said.
This statement is contradicted by eyewitnesses. See below...
UPDATES The Tennessean is
reporting the explosion was near an AT&T facility:
Widespread 911 issues in the Nashville area were reported after AT&T wireless and internet service were disrupted on Friday hours following a massive explosion downtown.
AT&T internet and phone service were disrupted in the area about 12 p.m. Friday.
Users around the country reported disruptions in service, but there was a concentration in the Nashville area and Middle Tennessee, growing in reach from Kentucky to Alabama as more reports came in.
© DownDetector.comAn AT&T outage was reported in Nashville and Middle Tennessee hours after an explosion took place near an AT&T facility.
Nashville International Airport announced Friday afternoon around 2:30 p.m. that the Federal Aviation Administration had halted flights out of the airport until later this afternoon. [...]
An AT&T spokesman confirmed the outage was linked to the explosion:
"Service for some customers in Nashville and the surrounding areas may be affected by damage to our facilities from the explosion this morning. We are in contact with law enforcement and working as quickly and safely as possible to restore service," said Jim Greer, an AT&T representative.
The FBI has released pictures of the suspected RV:
Updated outage map from downdetector.com:
© downdetector.com
RT reports
human remains have been found at the blast site:
Investigators have found human remains in close vicinity of the blast site in Nashville, Tennessee, according to AP and CNN sources familiar with the ongoing probe, but it is unclear if they might belong to a suspect or a victim.
NBC News
interviewed residents from the area:
One of the residents is Betsy Williams, 64, who runs a vacation rental business in a building her family owns across the street from where the RV was parked.
She was sleeping in her third-floor apartment on 2nd Avenue North when she was awakened by the sound of gunfire around 4:30 or 5 a.m., she said.
"It sounded like it was from an automatic weapon because it was rapid fire," she said, adding that she heard several loud bursts of gunfire, prompting her to call 911.
Williams' son, who was visiting from Georgia for the holiday and staying in one of the vacation units, noticed the RV parked across the street and thought it seemed suspicious, she said. Then she heard a voice coming from the vehicle warning that it was about to explode.
"It was, 'Evacuate now. This vehicle has a bomb. This vehicle will explode,'" she said.
When the message changed to a countdown, warning that the vehicle would explode in 15 minutes, then 14 minutes, she woke up her 85-year-old sister, who lives in Arizona but was visiting for the holiday, staying in another apartment. She put her cat, Mavis, into a carrier and she and her family got on the elevator around the time the message was giving an 11-minute warning.
They ran to her car, which was parked a block away, and drove across the river to watch from a distance. When nothing happened after 15 or 20 minutes, they started driving back home, she said. That's when they saw the explosion.
"A fireball went up above the AT&T building," she said. "It was a hellacious blast. It was just a big old boom and it blew out the front of those buildings and caused a crater in the street."
Williams and her family are now staying in a hotel with just the clothes they were wearing when they evacuated, unable to buy a change of clothes since the police have the downtown area shut down.
"I said I wanted to spend Christmas day in my pajamas all day long but I didn't really mean that," she joked.
She's not sure when she'll be able to get back home, or if anything will be left.
"It's terrible," she said. "All of my stuff. All of our Christmas presents. We had all of our stuff laid out, ready to have Christmas stockings and Christmas breakfast and open our gifts and spend all day having a really nice, relaxed Christmas, sipping on a little champagne, and now we're not doing any of that."
Still, she said, she's grateful that whoever planted the bomb issued the evacuation warning, enabling her family to escape with their lives.
"Thank God for that," she said.
Williams' spouse Kim Madlom, said they first called 911 about 5:30 a.m. after hearing what sounded like gunshots. About half an hour later, Madlom began to hear audio alerting them to the bomb.
"We went all the way down to our basement area and went out the back door on First Avenue because we were afraid to get on Second Avenue," Madlom said. "Because we also were concerned that we heard gunshots that, you know, we might be, somebody might be trying to lure us out."
Madlom believes whoever set off the bomb had given residents a "grace period" in case they didn't leave before the 15-minute warning was over.
"I do want to say in retrospect, we've talked about it, we feel like those gunshots were a recording as well. Not actual gunshots," Madlom said. "I mean, we feel like it was a recording because there was the sound the pattern to it. By the third time we heard it was exactly the same."
Sounds like this was a small-scale but sophisticated operation, designed to terrorize people, but somewhat more subtly than terrorist attack operators typically do.
The next OKC?